Conventional methods for generating characters on an electronic device involve a physical keyboard or keypad, a virtual keyboard or keypad on a touchscreen, the combination of pen/stylus or finger input on a touch pad with handwriting recognition software, the combination of a camera system with optical character recognition (OCR) software, or the combination of speech input with a speech recognition software. While effective, alternative methods of generating characters are desired to make the process more flexible depending on the device environment and user needs, among other reasons.